Problem:
-----------
When I try to play a video e.g. bear.wmv (delivered with Vista) with Windows
Media Player the whole pc freezes after after 1,5 seconds!

System:
---------
Vista 32bit Ultimate
AMD Athlon 4400+ X2
2x 1 GB Corsair geheugen
Asus A8N-SLI (Nvidia 15.00 drivers latest version)
Gforce 6600 GT ultra video card (Nvidia 100.65 drivers latest version)
2x Hauppauge 150MCE

Description:
--------------
During the install of Vista the installation stopped and didn't go further
on the point it tested the system to gather the performance-index
infromation. After a couple of hours I rebooted the system, and every thing
worked alright, except I couldn't play any video files in Windows Media
Player. The mouse cursor will not move anymore, ctrl+alt+del doesn't give a
response, display of my logitech G15 keyboard doesn't react anymore, the CPU
gives 100% cpu usage (strange for a dual core cpu) when starting a video and
after the first few video-frames the whole system freezes

Things tried but all generated the same problem:
--------------------------------------------------------
- Play video files (not recorded by Media Center) within Media Center videos
- Tried it after a clean install, with no other drivers or codecs installed
then the default ones. When this didn't work I installed the latest nForce
and Gforce drivers from the Nvidia website, when that didn't work I installed
the bèta Gforce drivers from the Nvidia website, and that didn't work either.
- Tried to turn off Areo, single monitor, 16 bit colors
- Tried using VLC-player which has embedded codecs and the system als
freezed, same as with Windows Media Player, so it's not a codec or Windows
Media problem, and this pointed me a little bit more in the direction of a
Geforce-driver problem!
- I played on Valve's Steam the game RedOrchestra Ostfront, this game
performed more stable, and with higher video settings and performance then I
could have ever done in WindowsXP SP2 before, I'm really happy about this!
- Because during the installation the Performance-index crashed, there isn't
a performance-index for my system, so when I restart it, every thing goes
alright till "playing from windows media" (it's a translation, in Dutch it
says "afspelen van windows media bepalen") then the system is really doing
calculations and the progression bar stops for a few second and then you hear
the harddisk loading information and the progression bar goes a inch further
and the begins heavy recalculations under the same test still saying "playing
from windows media" and then after 1.5 seconds the system freezes, the
mous-cursor won't move any more, and even after a night the system didn't
awake. In my own opinion and the information from the Microsoft technet site,
I guess that at this point it's running a video in memory to calculate it's
performance the same that happens with WMP and VLC and then crashes.

I've posted my problem at various websites, searched the whole internet, saw
some people having the same problem, but no solutions.

Second question not the highest priority:
-----------------------------------------------
- There is still one device in my device manager (something on the
motherboard) that is called a unknown device, any idea what that can be, or
what driver is needed for it?

I really hope you can help me, I'm very desperate!

Thanks in advance!

RedLion wrote:
Problem:
-----------
When I try to play a video e.g. bear.wmv (delivered with Vista) with
Windows Media Player the whole pc freezes after after 1,5 seconds!

System:
---------
Vista 32bit Ultimate
AMD Athlon 4400+ X2
2x 1 GB Corsair geheugen
Asus A8N-SLI (Nvidia 15.00 drivers latest version)
Gforce 6600 GT ultra video card (Nvidia 100.65 drivers latest version)
2x Hauppauge 150MCE

Description:
--------------
During the install of Vista the installation stopped and didn't go
further on the point it tested the system to gather the
performance-index infromation. After a couple of hours I rebooted the
system, and every thing worked alright, except I couldn't play any
video files in Windows Media Player. The mouse cursor will not move
anymore, ctrl+alt+del doesn't give a response, display of my logitech
G15 keyboard doesn't react anymore, the CPU gives 100% cpu usage
(strange for a dual core cpu) when starting a video and after the
first few video-frames the whole system freezes

Things tried but all generated the same problem:
--------------------------------------------------------
- Play video files (not recorded by Media Center) within Media Center
videos
- Tried it after a clean install, with no other drivers or codecs
installed then the default ones. When this didn't work I installed
the latest nForce and Gforce drivers from the Nvidia website, when
that didn't work I installed the bèta Gforce drivers from the Nvidia
website, and that didn't work either.
- Tried to turn off Areo, single monitor, 16 bit colors
- Tried using VLC-player which has embedded codecs and the system als
freezed, same as with Windows Media Player, so it's not a codec or
Windows Media problem, and this pointed me a little bit more in the
direction of a Geforce-driver problem!
- I played on Valve's Steam the game RedOrchestra Ostfront, this game
performed more stable, and with higher video settings and performance
then I could have ever done in WindowsXP SP2 before, I'm really happy
about this! - Because during the installation the Performance-index
crashed, there isn't a performance-index for my system, so when I
restart it, every thing goes alright till "playing from windows
media" (it's a translation, in Dutch it says "afspelen van windows
media bepalen") then the system is really doing calculations and the
progression bar stops for a few second and then you hear the harddisk
loading information and the progression bar goes a inch further and
the begins heavy recalculations under the same test still saying
"playing from windows media" and then after 1.5 seconds the system
freezes, the mous-cursor won't move any more, and even after a night
the system didn't awake. In my own opinion and the information from
the Microsoft technet site, I guess that at this point it's running a
video in memory to calculate it's performance the same that happens
with WMP and VLC and then crashes.

I've posted my problem at various websites, searched the whole
internet, saw some people having the same problem, but no solutions.

Second question not the highest priority:
-----------------------------------------------
- There is still one device in my device manager (something on the
motherboard) that is called a unknown device, any idea what that can
be, or what driver is needed for it?

I really hope you can help me, I'm very desperate!

Thanks in advance!
100% CPU usage is an indication something is hanging the system.

From what I can see at the nVidia site, these are still beta drivers of
which they've just released a new version and they have posted a link to a
site to report bugs in these drivers,
http://www.nvidia.com/vistaqualityassurance so it's quite possible these
drivers aren't completely stable in Vista yet. One thing that might
possibly help until better drivers are available would be to turn down
graphics acceleration. I don't have my Vista setup running right now but I
think you can still do this in Vista. Right click a blank space on the
desktop, choose properties, go to the Settings tab, click Advanced, go to
the Troubleshoot tab and move the Hardware Acceleration all the way to the
left which should be "None." Then, try again and see if that resolves the
issue.

--
Michael Solomon

Thanks for your quick response Michael!

The bèta drivers from Nvidia I've also tried, version 101.41, and they
didn't solve my problem either :-(
And I've filled in that bug report on the Nvidia website a few days ago, but
no responses yet...

Yes, a work around till the time being would also be nice, the trouble shoot
tab is still there in Vista only a little bit more difficult to find. The
only problem is that the button to change the video acceleration is disabled,
it says something like "With the currently used display device drivers it
isn't possible to change the hardware acceleration" (translated from dutch).

So any ideas now?

I find it difficult to say that the problem is because of the display
drivers, may be there is something corrupt in WMP-framework, because there
aren't any problems while playing games or replaying .dvr-ms files recorded
with Windows Media Center.

Thanks Olivier


"Michael Solomon" wrote:

RedLion wrote:
Problem:
-----------
When I try to play a video e.g. bear.wmv (delivered with Vista) with
Windows Media Player the whole pc freezes after after 1,5 seconds!

System:
---------
Vista 32bit Ultimate
AMD Athlon 4400+ X2
2x 1 GB Corsair geheugen
Asus A8N-SLI (Nvidia 15.00 drivers latest version)
Gforce 6600 GT ultra video card (Nvidia 100.65 drivers latest version)
2x Hauppauge 150MCE

Description:
--------------
During the install of Vista the installation stopped and didn't go
further on the point it tested the system to gather the
performance-index infromation. After a couple of hours I rebooted the
system, and every thing worked alright, except I couldn't play any
video files in Windows Media Player. The mouse cursor will not move
anymore, ctrl+alt+del doesn't give a response, display of my logitech
G15 keyboard doesn't react anymore, the CPU gives 100% cpu usage
(strange for a dual core cpu) when starting a video and after the
first few video-frames the whole system freezes

Things tried but all generated the same problem:
--------------------------------------------------------
- Play video files (not recorded by Media Center) within Media Center
videos
- Tried it after a clean install, with no other drivers or codecs
installed then the default ones. When this didn't work I installed
the latest nForce and Gforce drivers from the Nvidia website, when
that didn't work I installed the bèta Gforce drivers from the Nvidia
website, and that didn't work either.
- Tried to turn off Areo, single monitor, 16 bit colors
- Tried using VLC-player which has embedded codecs and the system als
freezed, same as with Windows Media Player, so it's not a codec or
Windows Media problem, and this pointed me a little bit more in the
direction of a Geforce-driver problem!
- I played on Valve's Steam the game RedOrchestra Ostfront, this game
performed more stable, and with higher video settings and performance
then I could have ever done in WindowsXP SP2 before, I'm really happy
about this! - Because during the installation the Performance-index
crashed, there isn't a performance-index for my system, so when I
restart it, every thing goes alright till "playing from windows
media" (it's a translation, in Dutch it says "afspelen van windows
media bepalen") then the system is really doing calculations and the
progression bar stops for a few second and then you hear the harddisk
loading information and the progression bar goes a inch further and
the begins heavy recalculations under the same test still saying
"playing from windows media" and then after 1.5 seconds the system
freezes, the mous-cursor won't move any more, and even after a night
the system didn't awake. In my own opinion and the information from
the Microsoft technet site, I guess that at this point it's running a
video in memory to calculate it's performance the same that happens
with WMP and VLC and then crashes.

I've posted my problem at various websites, searched the whole
internet, saw some people having the same problem, but no solutions.

Second question not the highest priority:
-----------------------------------------------
- There is still one device in my device manager (something on the
motherboard) that is called a unknown device, any idea what that can
be, or what driver is needed for it?

I really hope you can help me, I'm very desperate!

Thanks in advance!
100% CPU usage is an indication something is hanging the system.

From what I can see at the nVidia site, these are still beta drivers of
which they've just released a new version and they have posted a link to a
site to report bugs in these drivers,
http://www.nvidia.com/vistaqualityassurance so it's quite possible these
drivers aren't completely stable in Vista yet. One thing that might
possibly help until better drivers are available would be to turn down
graphics acceleration. I don't have my Vista setup running right now but I
think you can still do this in Vista. Right click a blank space on the
desktop, choose properties, go to the Settings tab, click Advanced, go to
the Troubleshoot tab and move the Hardware Acceleration all the way to the
left which should be "None." Then, try again and see if that resolves the
issue.

--
Michael Solomon

RedLion wrote:
Thanks for your quick response Michael!

The bèta drivers from Nvidia I've also tried, version 101.41, and they
didn't solve my problem either :-(
And I've filled in that bug report on the Nvidia website a few days
ago, but no responses yet...

Yes, a work around till the time being would also be nice, the
trouble shoot tab is still there in Vista only a little bit more
difficult to find. The only problem is that the button to change the
video acceleration is disabled, it says something like "With the
currently used display device drivers it isn't possible to change the
hardware acceleration" (translated from dutch).

So any ideas now?

I find it difficult to say that the problem is because of the display
drivers, may be there is something corrupt in WMP-framework, because
there aren't any problems while playing games or replaying .dvr-ms
files recorded with Windows Media Center.

Thanks Olivier


LOL, well, ain't that dandy, the accelleration is disabled....!!!

Trust me, the problem is the display drivers. If there was something
corrupt in WMP, it either wouldn't start or crash on opening. The fact the
file starts and then you have the issue points to two possibilities. One is
the file is corrupt and the other is a driver issue. Your original post
indicates you are having this problem on other files. If you have tested
other files and you still have the problem, I'd say that points right at the
drivers for your graphics card. Usually slowing acceleration resolves this
type of issue and will hold you until updated drivers are available or can
acqire a fully compatible graphics card. I don't really have anything else
in my bag of tricks for this.

I don't recommend a repair install or trashing the setup and reinstalling
for this. The system isn't crashing, it appears otherwise stable and none
of those repair options are likely to resolve what most likely is a driver
problem.

Wish I had more, sorry.

--
Michael Solomon

RedLion:
I've got your same mobo working with no problems.
The unknown device is your gameport, which is no longer supported in Vista.
Just disable gameport and MIDI (MPU-401) ports in BIOS setup and you'll no
longer see the unknown device.
All the rest of the devices (motherboard) has drivers from Windows Update or
NVidia.
Regarding the first problem.
Are you overclocking your card?
If the answer is no, I would suspect insufficient power from the power
supply or a faulty RAM module.
Carlos


"RedLion" wrote:

Problem:
-----------
When I try to play a video e.g. bear.wmv (delivered with Vista) with Windows
Media Player the whole pc freezes after after 1,5 seconds!

System:
---------
Vista 32bit Ultimate
AMD Athlon 4400+ X2
2x 1 GB Corsair geheugen
Asus A8N-SLI (Nvidia 15.00 drivers latest version)
Gforce 6600 GT ultra video card (Nvidia 100.65 drivers latest version)
2x Hauppauge 150MCE

Description:
--------------
During the install of Vista the installation stopped and didn't go further
on the point it tested the system to gather the performance-index
infromation. After a couple of hours I rebooted the system, and every thing
worked alright, except I couldn't play any video files in Windows Media
Player. The mouse cursor will not move anymore, ctrl+alt+del doesn't give a
response, display of my logitech G15 keyboard doesn't react anymore, the CPU
gives 100% cpu usage (strange for a dual core cpu) when starting a video and
after the first few video-frames the whole system freezes

Things tried but all generated the same problem:
--------------------------------------------------------
- Play video files (not recorded by Media Center) within Media Center videos
- Tried it after a clean install, with no other drivers or codecs installed
then the default ones. When this didn't work I installed the latest nForce
and Gforce drivers from the Nvidia website, when that didn't work I installed
the bèta Gforce drivers from the Nvidia website, and that didn't work either.
- Tried to turn off Areo, single monitor, 16 bit colors
- Tried using VLC-player which has embedded codecs and the system als
freezed, same as with Windows Media Player, so it's not a codec or Windows
Media problem, and this pointed me a little bit more in the direction of a
Geforce-driver problem!
- I played on Valve's Steam the game RedOrchestra Ostfront, this game
performed more stable, and with higher video settings and performance then I
could have ever done in WindowsXP SP2 before, I'm really happy about this!
- Because during the installation the Performance-index crashed, there isn't
a performance-index for my system, so when I restart it, every thing goes
alright till "playing from windows media" (it's a translation, in Dutch it
says "afspelen van windows media bepalen") then the system is really doing
calculations and the progression bar stops for a few second and then you hear
the harddisk loading information and the progression bar goes a inch further
and the begins heavy recalculations under the same test still saying "playing
from windows media" and then after 1.5 seconds the system freezes, the
mous-cursor won't move any more, and even after a night the system didn't
awake. In my own opinion and the information from the Microsoft technet site,
I guess that at this point it's running a video in memory to calculate it's
performance the same that happens with WMP and VLC and then crashes.

I've posted my problem at various websites, searched the whole internet, saw
some people having the same problem, but no solutions.

Second question not the highest priority:
-----------------------------------------------
- There is still one device in my device manager (something on the
motherboard) that is called a unknown device, any idea what that can be, or
what driver is needed for it?

I really hope you can help me, I'm very desperate!

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for your responses Michael, you really helped me!

Yes, it's a pitty that we can't resolve the problem :-(

Trust me, the problem is the display drivers.

Yes, I believe you, while you have probably seen problems when it was WMP
being corrupt or something like that. But I'm glad you have came to a
conclusion and helped me.

So I will go on pushing Nvidia to help me and solve my problem, and I will
go and try to let Leadtek the builder of mine card to push Nvidia to help
(what will probably not help...)...

The question remains, is there anyone else who has an idea or having the
same problems, or are running this hardware without any problems? Please
respond!

BTW graphic card is: LeadTek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH PCI-e 128mb DDR3

Thanks

Olivier

-----------------------------------
"Michael Solomon" wrote:

RedLion wrote:
Thanks for your quick response Michael!

The bèta drivers from Nvidia I've also tried, version 101.41, and they
didn't solve my problem either :-(
And I've filled in that bug report on the Nvidia website a few days
ago, but no responses yet...

Yes, a work around till the time being would also be nice, the
trouble shoot tab is still there in Vista only a little bit more
difficult to find. The only problem is that the button to change the
video acceleration is disabled, it says something like "With the
currently used display device drivers it isn't possible to change the
hardware acceleration" (translated from dutch).

So any ideas now?

I find it difficult to say that the problem is because of the display
drivers, may be there is something corrupt in WMP-framework, because
there aren't any problems while playing games or replaying .dvr-ms
files recorded with Windows Media Center.

Thanks Olivier


LOL, well, ain't that dandy, the accelleration is disabled....!!!

Trust me, the problem is the display drivers. If there was something
corrupt in WMP, it either wouldn't start or crash on opening. The fact the
file starts and then you have the issue points to two possibilities. One is
the file is corrupt and the other is a driver issue. Your original post
indicates you are having this problem on other files. If you have tested
other files and you still have the problem, I'd say that points right at the
drivers for your graphics card. Usually slowing acceleration resolves this
type of issue and will hold you until updated drivers are available or can
acqire a fully compatible graphics card. I don't really have anything else
in my bag of tricks for this.

I don't recommend a repair install or trashing the setup and reinstalling
for this. The system isn't crashing, it appears otherwise stable and none
of those repair options are likely to resolve what most likely is a driver
problem.

Wish I had more, sorry.

--
Michael Solomon

Hi Carlos,

Thanks for your response!

Just disable gameport and MIDI (MPU-401) ports in BIOS setup and you'll no
longer see the unknown device.
Yes, indeed that helped! I was afraid that some driver was not installed and
screwed up, was creating mine problems, but that isn't the case as I can make
up now from your response.

All the rest of the devices (motherboard) has drivers from Windows Update or
NVidia.
I've no unknown devices anymore now so thats great.

Are you overclocking your card?
No, not even my processor, all at standard speeds, only Cool & Quiet enabled
setting the proc on 1% min and 100% max.

If the answer is no, I would suspect insufficient power from the power
supply
I'm using a Tagan 480W power supply, bought it with the idea in mind for the
future so that it's heavy enough to run an extra video card in SLI, so I
think that will not be the problem.

or a faulty RAM module.
I've checked my RAM with a couple of tools and no faults found (even the
vista build in memory check tool can't find a problem).

Can you come up with more possibilities?

Thanks,

Olivier



"Carlos" wrote:

RedLion:
I've got your same mobo working with no problems.
The unknown device is your gameport, which is no longer supported in Vista.
Just disable gameport and MIDI (MPU-401) ports in BIOS setup and you'll no
longer see the unknown device.
All the rest of the devices (motherboard) has drivers from Windows Update or
NVidia.
Regarding the first problem.
Are you overclocking your card?
If the answer is no, I would suspect insufficient power from the power
supply or a faulty RAM module.
Carlos


"RedLion" wrote:

Problem:
-----------
When I try to play a video e.g. bear.wmv (delivered with Vista) with Windows
Media Player the whole pc freezes after after 1,5 seconds!

System:
---------
Vista 32bit Ultimate
AMD Athlon 4400+ X2
2x 1 GB Corsair geheugen
Asus A8N-SLI (Nvidia 15.00 drivers latest version)
Gforce 6600 GT ultra video card (Nvidia 100.65 drivers latest version)
2x Hauppauge 150MCE

Description:
--------------
During the install of Vista the installation stopped and didn't go further
on the point it tested the system to gather the performance-index
infromation. After a couple of hours I rebooted the system, and every thing
worked alright, except I couldn't play any video files in Windows Media
Player. The mouse cursor will not move anymore, ctrl+alt+del doesn't give a
response, display of my logitech G15 keyboard doesn't react anymore, the CPU
gives 100% cpu usage (strange for a dual core cpu) when starting a video and
after the first few video-frames the whole system freezes

Things tried but all generated the same problem:
--------------------------------------------------------
- Play video files (not recorded by Media Center) within Media Center videos
- Tried it after a clean install, with no other drivers or codecs installed
then the default ones. When this didn't work I installed the latest nForce
and Gforce drivers from the Nvidia website, when that didn't work I installed
the bèta Gforce drivers from the Nvidia website, and that didn't work either.
- Tried to turn off Areo, single monitor, 16 bit colors
- Tried using VLC-player which has embedded codecs and the system als
freezed, same as with Windows Media Player, so it's not a codec or Windows
Media problem, and this pointed me a little bit more in the direction of a
Geforce-driver problem!
- I played on Valve's Steam the game RedOrchestra Ostfront, this game
performed more stable, and with higher video settings and performance then I
could have ever done in WindowsXP SP2 before, I'm really happy about this!
- Because during the installation the Performance-index crashed, there isn't
a performance-index for my system, so when I restart it, every thing goes
alright till "playing from windows media" (it's a translation, in Dutch it
says "afspelen van windows media bepalen") then the system is really doing
calculations and the progression bar stops for a few second and then you hear
the harddisk loading information and the progression bar goes a inch further
and the begins heavy recalculations under the same test still saying "playing
from windows media" and then after 1.5 seconds the system freezes, the
mous-cursor won't move any more, and even after a night the system didn't
awake. In my own opinion and the information from the Microsoft technet site,
I guess that at this point it's running a video in memory to calculate it's
performance the same that happens with WMP and VLC and then crashes.

I've posted my problem at various websites, searched the whole internet, saw
some people having the same problem, but no solutions.

Second question not the highest priority:
-----------------------------------------------
- There is still one device in my device manager (something on the
motherboard) that is called a unknown device, any idea what that can be, or
what driver is needed for it?

I really hope you can help me, I'm very desperate!

Thanks in advance!

RedLion wrote:
Thanks for your responses Michael, you really helped me!

Yes, it's a pitty that we can't resolve the problem :-(

Trust me, the problem is the display drivers.

Yes, I believe you, while you have probably seen problems when it was
WMP being corrupt or something like that. But I'm glad you have came
to a conclusion and helped me.

So I will go on pushing Nvidia to help me and solve my problem, and I
will go and try to let Leadtek the builder of mine card to push
Nvidia to help (what will probably not help...)...

The question remains, is there anyone else who has an idea or having
the same problems, or are running this hardware without any problems?
Please respond!

BTW graphic card is: LeadTek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH PCI-e 128mb DDR3

Thanks

Olivier

You're welcome, RedLion.

A few other things to check that might be contributing to the issue. One
would be to check Device Manager and see if any other devices are banged
out. That is, do any other devices in Device Manager have red or yellow
warnings. It's possible such a device could cause a conflict that might be
the source of the issue. Some other things you can try, disconnect any
peripherals, one by one and after you disconnect each on,e try viewing the
file again and see what happens. If it solves the problem, this device may
be conflicting with your graphics card or the fact the graphics card drivers
appear to still be in beta, is itself the source of the conflict. This
would still indicate a driver issue but you'd be able to use WMP by simply
disconnecting the conflicting device from the system.

The next possibility would be pulling cards, soundcard, modem, ethernet if
an add-in card, from the inside and then testing again. Bit of a long and
involved process because you first have to remove the driver in Device
Manager, then, shut down, open the case, remove the card, close the case
reboot and test. If it were me, I'd buy another graphics card because I
don't like a device taking charge of my system that way!:-)

--
Michael Solomon